A blog about designing, creating, and painting wooden model soldiers for wargaming. These models are sometimes known as "craftees". To me, they are wooden warriors.

Monday, June 14, 2010

A Slight Diversion - A Greek Hoplite Helmet, Part 2

When we last left off I had the basic shape and color down, but I wanted to experiment more with the horsehair crest and the nose guard. I was also thinking about the cheek guards, but I decided that I did not want to over-engineer this one.

Let's start with the nose guard. I want to give it a little more of a three-dimensional look, so I used a simple flat toothpick and glued it where I had previously painted it on.

While the glue sets, I went on to the horsehair crest. I wanted to try an alternating color, as I always have one heckuva time painting it evenly by hand. In this case I cut pieces of white and black yarn and glued them with Glue Gel to the wooden comb (painted red in the picture). Once the glue had dried I used a fine point to 'comb out' the yarn and unravel it.

In order to shape the crest I soaked the yarn in a little bit Glue Gel to stiffen it up and keep it in place. Not too much glue, as you don't want it to be hard. You just need it firm enough to be able to cut it.

As you can see, with it stiffened, it cuts nicely with sharp scissors and has a nice shape. I also added a piece of yarn hanging down for a horse tail.

The last two pictures also show where I had gently sanded and cut down the nose guard so it is thinner at the top and thicker at the bottom. Time to paint that like the helmet, comb out the horse tail, soak it in glue, and cut it. Here is the finished Corinthian helmet.

That was a lot of fun! But, now I have to return to my French Napoleonics. To the guys on the Wargaming on a Budget forum on Yahoo: no more intriguing "how would you do this?" type questions, okay? : )